


Early Salvation

by idrilhadhafang



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Beginnings of Poe Dameron/Kylo Ren, Enemy Mine - Freeform, Love/Hate, M/M, Movie: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Past Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 12:30:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19441504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: The Resistance gains an unexpected ally — as well as an unexpected old enemy.





	Early Salvation

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Rivals Working Together
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author’s Notes: Call it an Episode IX speculation that brings Palpatine into the picture somehow.

The meeting ended, and Poe and Kylo were alone in the meeting room. Kylo could only assume that the others didn’t want to be around him. He supposed that he couldn’t say that he blamed them. He was, in the end, a monster. It didn’t matter that he was helping out against the Emperor — and stars but it sounded Iike the plot of a bad horror holo, the dead coming back to life — he wasn’t his grandfather. He couldn’t be redeemed. Everyone knew that.   
  
So Poe hating him...well, it wasn’t like it was ill-deserved.   
  
Poe turned to look at him. “I think I was pretty restrained, all things considered,” he said. “Like a diplomat.”  
  
“Like a diplomat,” Kylo said.   
  
Poe stood up and walked towards him. “You know,” he said, “When I was going to Jakku, I wasn’t just looking for the map to Luke Skywalker. I was trying to find you. Trying to see if there was any trace of where you might have gone. I didn’t think you’d become...that.”  
  
Kylo couldn’t help but flinch a little. Just...that. It summed things up pretty well.   
  
Poe continued. “I was such a fool! Stars, Kylo, sometimes I wish I’d never met you...”  
  
“I know.” Kylo couldn’t deny it. Not now.   
  
“And you know what the worst part is?” Poe said. “Go on, guess. Rip my mind apart again if you want to; it’s something you’d do.”  
  
Kylo couldn’t. Not again. “I’m not giving you that,” he said.   
  
“Would have been nice the first time around,” Poe said, softly.   
  
“I did hurt you,” Kylo said. “I’m sorry.”  
  
For a moment, he swore that a look of genuine surprise came over Poe’s face. Then, “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this earlier? Better yet, why did you just...not do it in the first place?”  
  
“Snoke made me,” Kylo said. “He...gave me orders to get whatever bits of information from you I could. I held off as long as I could. He...nearly killed me.”  
  
Poe really did look surprised now — no, in shock.   
  
Kylo recounted the rest of it. Snoke using the Force Lightning on him again and again, up until he started wishing that anyone but himself was hurting. Until he was almost tempted to hate Poe, for not suffering like he was suffering.   
  
“I could have helped you,” Poe said.   
  
“Even you couldn’t have stood against Snoke long.”  
  
Kylo looked away. “If it’s all the same to you,” he said, “I despise myself as much as you despise me.”  
  
“I don’t...despise you.” Poe took a deep breath. “It’s complicated, that’s all.”  
  
Kylo could only imagine.  
  
“So, what now?” he said.   
  
“We...work together. It won’t be easy, but people are counting on us. All of us.”  
  
Kylo supposed he couldn’t deny that. Poe was angry with him, but he was also dedicated to the cause, and he would do whatever he could for it.   
  
“I can do that,” Kylo said.   
  
***  
  
It was the night that they were going to head out towards Moraband (a possible lead for where the Emperor’s spirit was. Ajunta Pall had resided on the planet, then named Korriban, as a ghost before the former Sith Lord Revan had helped him find redemption...or so the old Jedi texts had said) that Kylo found, not for the first time,   
that he couldn’t sleep. Sleep had always been difficult when he was a boy, thanks to Snoke’s presence, but this was for a different reason. Snoke was dead, for starters, and for another, Kylo was no longer in the First Order. He was in the Resistance, which was cautiously beginning to trust him.   
  
Kylo couldn’t say that he blamed their cautiousness.   
  
Poe was up too. Rey was asleep, and so was FN-2187, or Finn — and so many others. Kylo was grateful for that, at least. Finally, Kylo said, “You can’t sleep either?”  
  
“Not really.” Poe said. He turned to look at Kylo. “You know, when I came to Jakku...I loved you then.”  
  
If Poe was trying to disarm him, Kylo could safely say that it worked. Then, “Why?”  
  
“Does there need to be?”  
  
“Poe, you don’t understand. I’m...” _Not worthy,_ he finished in his mind. That was one way to put it. “A monster.”  
  
“You didn’t start out that way.”  
  
“I don’t know.” Even his own parents had been afraid of him. His mother moreso than his father, but still...  
  
Poe stood up and walked towards him. “Ben,” he said, and Kylo couldn’t help but flinch a little. “You weren’t. And you’ve done bad things, but you’re willing to atone. That’s...stronger than you give yourself credit for.”  
  
Kylo swallowed. Even hearing that from Poe was everything he’d wanted to hear over the course of the past few days. Constructing a new lightsaber (a sort of synthesis between his two old ones), trying to make amends...everything.   
  
“Is there still a place in your future for me?” he said to Poe.   
  
“There is, Ben.”  
  
Kylo sighed. “We wasted so much time. There was so much I wanted to tell you...”  
  
“I know. Same here.” A beat. “Do you love me, still?”  
  
“I always have.”  
  
They sat together on the log, and it was below the stars that they silently promised to face the upcoming fight together, no matter what the cost.


End file.
